"Braveheart's" sword is sent to do battle in America

I am neither a great history buff nor a swords expert, but a quick search on the internet seem to confirm what I seemed to remember about great swords: All the great swords seems to date around 15.-16. century believed mainly to be used against heavy armor or piked formations. A group of soldiers would wade in with enormous two-handed swords (Zweihaender - up to 20 pounds) to chop down pikes and pike wielders like lumberjacks trees in a forest, since the pikes were the most effective defense against cavallery, in order to allow the own cavallery "access" to the lines behind the pikes. Usually not exactly an evyed position as the fatality rate was apparently pretty high since they were essentially defenseless against bowmen. So definitely not a nobel mans job. Those swords did not have to be wielded by enormous men, as they were not really used for sword-sword combat apparently manly farmboys. Even the sword classification of Claidheamh mòr dates to around the same time.

If Wallace was fighting against strong pike formations, its rather unlikely that you would be able to derive large stature from the dimensions of the sword. What does he say in the film: "And flames shoot out from his ass, too...".

Is it really so important, whether it is Wallaces or not? I think it is pretty cool, one way or another!
 
Claidheanihmoor, or claymore in Gaelic, is a very majestic name, IMHO. The sword in question is a very majestic sword. But in my limited sword knowledge, that hilt/guard design looks to be mainland European, in fact, it does look like what HoB describe, a sword used by German swordsmen. Would Levine know anything about this?
 
bithabus said:
The burden of proof is on the "Wallace actually used it" side. And, there's the opinion of experts that the blade is not old enough.

I don't believe anything without evidence, and there's no evidence that this sword belonged to Wallace.
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Wheres the evidence that says it did notnot ?
 
Hi fellas. I don't know whether Mr. Wallace used this sword, and don't really care. I just saw a few things I wanted to address about long swords in general.

Now HoB, I'm really not trying to pick on you here or anything, but you happened to throw out a whole bunch of myths in one handy post...

HoB said:
All the great swords seems to date around 15.-16. century believed mainly to be used against heavy armor or piked formations. A group of soldiers would wade in with enormous two-handed swords (Zweihaender - up to 20 pounds) to chop down pikes and pike wielders which were the most effective defense against cavallery, like lumberjacks, in order to allow the cavallery "access" to the lines behind the pikes... So definitely not a nobel mans job.
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Swords are generally ineffective against plate armor. Pole arms, axes, hammers, estocs, maces, and other large "can openers" were preferred against it. And fer cryin' out loud, they DID NOT weigh 20 friggin' pounds! The sword in question is only 5 pounds, and they rarely exceeded 8 pounds. There were some enormous "bearing swords" made that weighed a lot, but these were purely ceremonial for processions, etc.

Many modern scholars have also questioned the notion that special soldiers used these swords first to break enemy pike lines. Think about how much room a guy would need to swing one of these effectively. Now think about how many tightly packed guys with pikes, in double ranks, he would have to face in that same space. One guy with a sword just doesn't have a chance against 6 or 8 guys with spears! The men who carried these were often called "doppelsoldner" not because they were willing to take a suicide mission, but because they were valued veterans.

There is some interesting info on these swords here on the ARMA page: The Weighty Issue of Two Handed Greatswords
 
silenthunterstudios said:
Wheres the evidence that says it did notnot ?
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Like I said, the burden of proof is on the other side here. If I claim that my pocketknife was used by the Pope, would you believe me due to a lack of evidence that it was not used by the Pope?
 
Strains of "Scots Wa Hae" are running thru my head as I read ths thread.I was invited to march in the first Tartan Day parade but couldn't get off work.One of these days I'll get there.tom. :)
 
bithabus said:
there's the opinion of experts that the blade is not old enough...

I don't believe anything without evidence, and there's no evidence that this sword belonged to Wallace...
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What experts? I would like to read up on this.
 
SunnyD
I don't know about this particular sword, but if you want a good reference for swords in general Ewart Oakeshoot wrote some great books - Records of the Medieval Sword and Archaeology of Weapons among them. I believe he mentions the Wallace Sword in one of them, but I could be wrong. As to whether or not this sword actually belonged to William Wallace I think would be very difficult to prove definitively, unless it was handed down from clan member to clan member, or was recovered archaeologically from known provenience. There seems to be no name engraved in it, which could be correlated with a saga, as has been done with some Norse swords. If the blade is determined to be of the right date, although it has been re-hilted in recent times, it's entirely possible that it could have belonged to Wallace. In either case, it has been held up as a symbol of what Wallace stood and died for for so long that it has become a significant cultural artifact, and a national treasure. Given that fact I think it's really neat that Scotland would lend us the sword, no matter who owned it. (edited to add) I have Records of the Medieval sword at home, I'll look for the Wallace sword tonight and see if it's mentioned.

Lagarto
 
Thanks lagarto! I look forward to hearing more details this evening re: Records of the Medieval Sword.

If you read Maximum Otters intial post in this thread, the National Museum of Scotland seems to have this piece very well documented regarding its history and timelines. But I would love to here much more on this subject.

ps(silenthunter has also sent this thread to Benard Levine's Identification & Collection discussion forum. So he may be able to shed some light on this as well.)
 
bithabus said:
Like I said, the burden of proof is on the other side here. If I claim that my pocketknife was used by the Pope, would you believe me due to a lack of evidence that it was not used by the Pope?
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Well, if you were a museum in Scotland saying the pocketknife had been used by the Pope, I'd give it a little more credence than if it were just some random guy on the Internet saying it. ;)
 
It may be the only time the sword leaves Scotland

It was kept at Dumbarton Castle for 600 years after his execution in 1305, and was later moved to the Wallace Monument at Stirling, where it overlooks the scene of the battle.

SunnyD,
You're right, I overlooked that.

Lagarto
 
lagarto said:
It may be the only time the sword leaves Scotland

It was kept at Dumbarton Castle for 600 years after his execution in 1305, and was later moved to the Wallace Monument at Stirling, where it overlooks the scene of the battle.

SunnyD,
You're right, I overlooked that.

Lagarto
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I don't think that's true. Before 1505, as I understand, there is no record of this sword anywhere.
 
donutsrule said:
Well, if you were a museum in Scotland saying the pocketknife had been used by the Pope, I'd give it a little more credence than if it were just some random guy on the Internet saying it. ;)
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Is a museum in Scotland claiming that?

If there are claims of this sort, backed up with documentation, then I'd be very interested to find out about that.
 
Hey, Possum,
That is ok. I said, I wasn't a great history buff or a swords expert. The use of great swords against pike formations is something that I picked up while visiting several armory museeum's several years back and it gets mentioned in (history-) books occasionally, but I couldn't name a battle in which such tactics were employed either. Again since I am not an expert I have to rely on other peoples opinion.

Your link (nice link by the way) does also state that the great swords are associated mainly with the 15.-16. century. And it mentions exactly what I said in a previous post: "One source tells us that among 16th century armies the adoption of the two-handers was very limited and in comparison with the pike or the halberd did not play a meaningful role. “In the infantry unit, the German and Swiss Landsknechts positioned the Doppelsöldner (Soldiers who received double pay for wielding the two-handers) in the front ranks for a long time to strike down the opposing pikes and to hack out breaches into which one's own soldiers could penetrate. However it would become unusable, as soon as the opposing forces collided with one another, and there would be increased pressure from the back ranks onto the front ranks, which created a thick melee.” Thus, “sometime around the middle of the 16th century it (the two-hander) disappeared from war and mutated into a form of guard and ceremonial weapon with a symbolic character.” (Kamniker and Krenn, p. 130). "
Your link by the way says nothing about the Doppelsoeldner to be veterans, it only states, that the soldier wielding Zweihaender would receive double the pay, which kind of implies that this was a rather dangerous or otherwise unappealing job, I would imagine

As far as the weight goes: the Claymore is a much lighter sword than the german Zweihaender, and even those vary greatly in weight. But I have actually seen ONE that was about 8 kg (about 20 british pounds), but it looked quite different than those in your link. It was about 1.80 m oal which made it longer than most people at that time were tall, was very broad and not very slim in profile either. I don't know whether that was a ceremonial sword as your link describes it or not, it could very well be, again no expert here. But your link clearly states that such swords did exsist.

I kind of resent the statement that I was "throwing out a lot of myths in one handy post". I think I clearly stated that I didn't do a thorough research on it, nor do I think that I was THAT far of the mark to justify such a harsh comment?
 
HoB said:
Your link (nice link by the way) does also state that the great swords are associated mainly with the 15.-16. century. And it mentions exactly what I said in a previous post:
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Yes, I'm aware of that. And it raised a bit of a stir among the other historians I mentioned. Don't feel bad; this has been repeated so often in so many places it's basically considered "common knowledge". Others make very good arguments that the prevailing wisdom is wrong. That's all I was trying to point out there.

HoB said:
I kind of resent the statement that I was "throwing out a lot of mysts in one handy post". I think I clearly stated that I didn't do a thorough research on it, nor do I think that I was THAT far of the mark to justify such a harsh comment?
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Hey, I didn't mean to belittle you. It was perhaps a bit harsh. However, in the sword community, the crude 20 pound battle sword is widely regarded as a very destructive myth. Even if that one sword you saw was really meant for battle, (which is highly doubtful) it is by far and away a very big exception to the rule.

cheers.
 
Hey I gladly concede the points you were making, I mean that's what we are here for, to learn, right? (Well, at least that's why I am here :) ) Especially on a topic were I really don't know much about. Your remark just sounded as if I had made this stuff up, which is obviously not the case. That's the only reason I kind of felt, that I had to defend myself.
 
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